1. Field of the Disclosure
This disclosure relates generally to the field of media recovery systems for surface preparation equipment, such as shot blast equipment, and more particularly to support hangers for feed screw conveyors used to transport media, such as steel shot, grit, sand, and the like, used in surface preparation equipment.
2. Discussion of Related Art
Media recovery systems are used to return media, such as shot, grit, sand, and the like, to surface preparation equipment, such as shot blast equipment. A typical recovery system includes feed screws or conveyors that receive used media to convey the used media back to the surface preparation equipment. The feed screw, which is disposed in a cylindrical casing or a facet trough made flat at the bottom with angled walls, may often carry the media a considerable distance. Thus, more than one feed screw may be needed. Support hanger bearings are often used to support sections of the feed screws having long distances of travel. Since such support hanger bearings are used in extremely abrasive environments, the support hanger bearing must be able to operate to ensure the continued rotation of the feed screw. The support hanger bearings are oftentimes considered to be the weak point of screw conveyor systems since the abrasive media can penetrate bearings used in such support hangers and compromise the useful life of the bearings.
Several known approaches for supporting feed screws are described in, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,934,374, entitled “Sand Reclamation System,” U.S. Pat. No. 4,077,508, entitled “Sealed Hanger bearing for Use with Abrasive Conveyors,” U.S. Pat. No. 4,220,242, entitled “Screw Conveyor with Intermediate Bearing,” U.S. Pat. No. 4,424,046, entitled “Flexible Coupling;” U.S. Pat. No. 4,627,885, entitled “Method of Producing a Compression Loaded Torsional Coupling Device.” U.S. Pat. No. 4,645,067, entitled “Screw Conveyor,” U.S. Pat. No. 5,222,591, entitled “Rotary Pipe and Fixed Channel Auger with Intermediate Outer Supporting Elements;” and U.S. Pat. No. 6,398,012, entitled “Support and Coupling Assembly for Screw Conveyor.”